#PNW

Private Pilot: $100 Burger

Posted on August 16, 2021August 17, 2021 by AstroPilotDad

As a part of getting my cross country time, which by the way has been very very very slow, I have been asking friends if they are interested in a cross country trip with me so that we could actually make a trip out of it rather than me just going for a solo trip with time building in mind. One of my friends is interested in getting a pilot certificate, so he was the first one I reached out to. He had not gotten his second dose of covid vaccination, so we waited for a few weeks allowing for his second dose and the two week wait period before we got in the plane together. My friend had a bit of fear of flying so I decided to keep it a very short but still a cross country trip as that was one of the goals of this flight. I decided that a trip to Port Angeles and on the way back stop over at Port Townsend for lunch would be the best thing to do is.

I booked a Piper Warrior for the trip as the flight school I rent from is currently very busy and their 172s book well in advance and usually the warrior is the only one available. I’m glad that I have a checkout in a warrior as well. The weather this summer in PNW has been very hot and I’m sure with each passing summer, its going to get progressively worse. While the day we chose for the flight was not extremely hot, the warrior owing to its one tiny window gets hot AF on the ground while taxiing and during the run up. Once you are in the air, the vents help bring cool air in but you have to endure the heat until that happens. Oh, the other challenge (not really a challenge but a con) with the warrior is that, owing to its low wing and seats, the views from the plane are not as expansive as that from a C172.

Anyway, once we reached the airport, I did a preflight and we got into the plane. I gave my friend my old Faro headset that has been lying around in my home unused since I upgraded to Bose A20. I noticed that his volume was low but did not think much of it and we taxiied, did the run up and took off. Once the plane took off, my friends voice was barely audible. I fidgeted with the volume controls but no luck. So, unfortunately, most of the flight was one way communication where I was talking and my friend was gesturing with his hands 😐 . We flew west to port angeles did a quick touch and go, and on the way back to Paine field stopped over at Port Townsend. There is an airport cafe here where we decide to get our $100 burger sitting outside watching the planes land and take off. However, there was a 20 minute wait for an outdoor seat so we decided to order the food to go and sit in one of the park benches on the grass surrounding the cafe. For those of you who don’t know, this cafe, Spruce Goose Cafe, is famous for their pie. I decided to pick some marionberry pie for my wife, who unfortunately couldn’t join us because she had lot going on at work.

After a nice lunch, we decided to head back. The temperature was peaking for the day and the plane had gotten very very hot on the inside. During the time we taxiied to the runway, did our run up and took off, we were dripping with sweat. The journey back to paine field was largely uneventful except for a few gusts of wind at take off and enroute which caused a bit of turbulence and scared the s**** out of my friend 🙂 . Not sure if it helped or hurt my friends desire to get a private pilot cetificate 🙂 .Here is a quick view of our flight path that day:

It was, overall, a pretty good adventure. I sure had fun. Hope my friend did too! Next up, a flight with another friend to the Spruce Goose Museum in McMinnville. I’ve been meaning to do this for a while but its an entire day trip so need to figure out the logistics as I dont want to have my wife manage our kid for the entire day by herself while I go have fun 🙂 . I can take them for the museum but I still need to get my son to wear headphones and an hour half long flight and an entire day out is not feasible at this age. He needs to be a bit older before we take him for such long outings. Heck, so far all we have managed with him is one hour and half long drive with him so far!

Private Pilot: Back on my Instrument Rating journey!

Posted on June 17, 2021June 17, 2021 by AstroPilotDad

This past weekend I finally got to resume my Instrument Rating. The planned training flight got bumped a couple of times because of scheduling conflicts, incident at the airport and weather, but eventually, I got together with the instructor last weekend and restarted my training. Since this was the first flight with me wearing the hood, he asked me what I’d like to focus on. I told him that I wanted to do basic maneuvers, steep turns, unusual attitudes and a couple of approaches. So that’s what we did.

I haven’t had hood time for over more than a year now. For that level of “rustyness”, my instructor said I did pretty good. I had a little bit of issue holding the altitude but apart from that he thought I did good. He said I was closer to getting my instrument rating than I thought, which was pretty encouraging.

Lot’s of hood time and a couple of Instrument approaches

The above map from flightware shows the path I took for this refresher flight. The small loops on the left (west) are the steep turns and then the two approaches (a VOR and an ILS). There was a procedure turn with a parallel entry if you can spot it 🙂 . The first one was an ILS to a missed approach followed by the VOR. We were supposed to land right away but were a bit high and there was an embraer jet ready to take off so we did a go around, canceled the IFR that my instructor had filed and did a visual approach landing. Overall, I felt good going out there flying under the hood. The instructor also suggested that I get my written exam done so that there is only the check ride to get my instrument done. Although, there are those cross country requirements that I am still short on!!

So, next steps – get a bunch of cross country flights in (hopefully to some destinations rather than just getting the log book time), get registered for a ground school, get endorsement for a test and get that out of the way. Like I said before, I’m excited to finally get back out flying and get my instrument rating training going. Will keep the blog updated with my progress. Now time to find to a good groundschool and hit the books ugggh!

Personal: Yay! N!=1

Posted on June 11, 2021June 11, 2021 by AstroPilotDad

We did it! We made it a trend! Well, not really a trend but as I said in my previous post, I choose to call it that 🙂 ! I’m talking about the hike we did this past weekend. It was hike number two for us. Yes, we did the same hike that we did last time, we did it with the same set of friends as last time but the weather was much nicer and we did it in less time because – experience 😛 .

Anyway, to be honest, we need to do a lot more of outdoor activity that we currently do. While we take our son for walks almost every day (rain or shine), we need to be a lot more deliberate about enjoying the nice weather out there. This will only last a short while before either the gray PNW skies take over or there is smoke all over the place due to forest fires, which, unfortunately, has been happening quite a lot. There is an undeniable beauty to the pacific northwest summers but if this trend continues, it will be harder and harder to find those perfect summer days.

On a lighter note, I can confidently say that our hike was not a singular event. If it happend more than once, you can extrapolate it to say that its likely to happen 🙂 just like, if we find evidence of second genisis, we can confidently say that life is all pervasive throughout the universe. That doesnt mean if we dont find the evidence, there isn’t life elsewhere. I am firmly on the camp that there is life and that too of bizzare (of the kind that we can’t imagine because for most part our thoughts and imagination are bounded by the life we see on this planet) nature out there. It is like we can’t imagine what fourth dimension of space looks like. We can use analogies and extrpolate from imaginnig what living beings in an imaginary two dimensional world will experience when someone from third dimension shows up but its not the same. We cannot imagine a fourth dimension of space. Anyway, I digress 🙂 .

I think the point I was trying to make with this post is COVID has thrown a wrench in everyones life and I don’t think normal as we knew it prior to the pandemic is every going to come back. What we all can do is bring some normalcy and routine in our lives by doing things that make us feel in control of the situation. Even without COVID, our lifestyle was expected to change because of our kid but we want to make sure we were deliberate in keeping doings things we wanted to do. With COVID its become exponentially harder but the hikes (n=2 or rather n=!1) are a step in that direction for us as a family. For me personally though, my wife has been very supportive, allowing me to engage in my hobbies of flying and amateur astronomy, for which I am eternally grateful!

WOW! This post went from our decipline in outdoor activities to life out there in the universe to 4th dimension of space before coming back to the pandemic. What random thoughts go in this tiny brain of mine 🙂 Anywhoo, for anyone interested, Here is an interesting video on what life in 2d might look like:

Until next time!

Private Pilot: Easing back into flying

Posted on June 3, 2021June 3, 2021 by AstroPilotDad

Short post alert! With my required annual review done, I am eager to complete my instrument rating training. However, I still have a bunch of cross countries to finish as a PIC and before getting right into those, I wanted to get comfortable being in the cockpit alone so this past memorial day weekend, I rented a plane to go flying!

I think, touch and go’s are a nice way ease back into flying so that’s what I decided to do. Took the plane to the short runway and did several landings. Going back up in the air by myself, soaking in the beautiful pacific northwest scenery on a nice clear day and getting the rust off of my flying skills. It was liberating!

The first landing and subsequent takeoff was bit rough on the edges but after getting the feel for the plane, the subsequent landings were mostly smooth. Although, I did not practise forward slip like I had thought the last time around. I think it is better to practise them at altitude before trying to do them for landing. If I ever felt I was a bit high and not comfortable/ready for a slip, go around would be an easy option. However, I did not have to do any of that this time.

For those who care, here is a video I took of my touch and go’s. The altitude and the speed G-Metrix are messed up but its just a mundane video showing me take off and land several times 🙂 . Enjoy!

Next, finish my cross country PIC (pilot in command) time and continue IFR training with instructor but before that a lesson with instructor to dust off my IFR skills (practising holds, approaches, naviation etc).

Keep an eye out for updates as I restart Instrument rating training in my private pilot journey!

Personal: First “Vacation” as a Family

Posted on May 28, 2021 by AstroPilotDad

This past weekend was a huge milestone for us as a family. We went on a “road trip” for a “vacation”! Alright, I know it sounds wonderful but there is a reason I put road trip and vacation in quotes 🙂 . It was less of a vacation and more of a test of how our son would react to a new environment. We chose a destination that was about an hour and half from our home – a small Island in the Puget sound called Camano Island. Having said that, it was still a great break to get away from the daily rut. Our son was largely okay during the drive. Although, my wife had to sit with him in the back seat. He usually tends to get bored after some time and then gets cranky. If my wife keeps shuffling through the toys, he is fine. The airbnb we booked had really nice views of Puget Sound making it easy to get the island vacation feel 🙂 . On the first night, we had issues with the heat. I followed the instructions laid down by the host but the fireplae did not turn on. It seemed like the pilot light was out and I wasn’t able to get it to work. There was another heater (radiator type) that made some crackling sounds when I turned it on. Not liking that, I turned it off. We had plans of having our son sleep with us in the same room given the new place and all but given the issues with the heater, we decided he would sleep in a different room where there was an electrical heater. We tried to keep the room settings as close to home as we could (we even took the white noise machine from home). However, the room wasn’t dark enough and our son woke up at 4:15 the first morning so we had to tend to him then.

On saturday, we decdied to explore the place a bit and went to the beach close to our airbnb followed by the Cama beach state park. With the nice warm weather, stunning viewes all around, the place is awesome. Pictures don’t do the place justice but here are a couple of shots from our day out:

My son and I enjoying the beautiful views and conteplating about life! 😛

A nice click by my wife. I think her photograph turned out much better than whatever I was photographing there 🙂

It wasn’t really a “day” out because we headed out of the airbnb after our son’s first nap so around 3pm and came back home at around 7pm. But as they say, its not the amount of time you spend enjoying but the quality of time that matters. So it was a throroughly enjoyable day with the family and nice to get away from the daily rut. The next day, we decided to head back early so left the place around 11:15 and were back home by 1:00 to get ready for the grind. The trip was a good test and now we know what all we should have packed and what all we packed that was unnecessary. A learning for the next trip!

Btw, another bonus activity I was able to do, was get a nice picture of the night sky. Friday night was forecasted to be clear (although it got cloudy after 1:30 am) so I decided to take some star trail pictures with the puget sound as the foreground. I did not carry my telescope or the star tracker and it was too bright (with the moon and city lights) for milky way shots so the choice was simple. Here is a processed image of the night sky I captured. The orange/yellow glow on the left is the cloud cover that was approaching and the bluish purple tint, I am assuming, is auroral activity?